Story+1976-04-29+Memphis,+TN

‘‘I grew up in this, this small town, was about 10,000 people, I guess, I lived, I lived in this two, this two-family house on like this main drag, this main highway that sort of ran through town…..and at night I always remember my father….used to lock up the frontdoor so that….me and my sister used to have to come in ‘round through the kitchen…..and every night for as long as I remember, ever since I was a real little kid, he used to sit in the kitchen with all the lights out, smoke a cigarette, drink beer…. he’d always turn on the stove, shut the door so it´d get real hot in there, he´d sit there all night, and my mother, she´d sit in the…..frontroom with just the TV on….if we came in around 10 or 11, it was never too bad…..if we came in around 1, 2 in the morning, past midnight…..I’d always have to hope I can make it through the kitchen before he’d stop me and make me sit down with him and….and talk to him about something, whatever was on his mind…..first…..he’d just start talking to me about what was going on in school….but pretty soon….he´d start asking me where I was getting my money….who I was out with, where I was….what I was trying to do with myself….pretty soon we’d be screaming at each other and my mother’d be running in from the frontroom, try and keep us from fighting with each other…..I’d be running out the backdoor…..telling him how it was my life and I could do what I wanted to do….”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, intro to ‘It’s My Life’**

‘‘You can’t play with your socks down…..I got these cheap socks, they fall down in my boots….you cannot play with your socks down, alright….Professor !….”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, intro to ‘Thunder Road’**

‘‘Thank you, uh….got a little announcement here to make for one second : if Nina Prewitt is in the audience, could she please go up front ‘cause she has somebody’s medicine and she’s gonna need it right away, so Nina, if you’re in the audience, Nina Prewitt, is that you ?….she’s gone ? well, Nina Prewitt, if, if you´re in the audience and you have somebody’s medicine, could you please go up front ‘cause they need it right away….”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, intro to ‘Born to Run’**

‘‘Oh man, what a mess, alright….oh yeah !….got a story to tell you….told you I used to live on this, like, this main highway, this main street in town, like, and uh, every day used to be this one girl who used to come walking by my house, you know, and, like, she….she looked like she must’ve worked down in one of the office buildings in town or something ‘cause she was always dressed up pretty nice, always had high heels on and stuff, she’d come by my house every day, every day I’d sit out there and you know, watch her go by and I’d sit out there with Steve, you know, so…..so this went on for a while and I finally….I said ‘Steve, listen….here’s what we gotta do…. you (chuckles) just go across the street and say ‘I am Miami Steve, who are you and how can we get together and et cetera, et cetera….right ? that’s easy enough, right ?’ ….but he, he wouldn’t do it, you see, ‘cause he was scared…..I wouldn´t do it ‘cause I was too scared, you know….but we didn´t have like, we didn’t have, we didn´t have suits then and we didn’t have guitars or nothing so, so we figured we had to, we had to like figure out some way, some way to catch this girl’s eye, you know, some way to impress her so she would maybe come over and say hello so we went down….we went down, there was a store in town, the Western Autostore, it was called, it sold, they used to sell car parts and guitars, I remember, and they had this 18-dollar, 18.95 Tritone guitar up there on the wall, I said….I said ‘Mister, let me take that one, the one right next to the muffler’ so….he gets the guitar down, I buy the thing, we go home and like three days later, after some serious rehearsing, we see her, she´s coming by on the other side of the street, right ?….so we start like, Steve starts plucking out the chords, you know, (?) and I got maracas, I jump out on the street and I’m doing all this kind of stuff, you know….like, you know, we’re acting like, acting like fools, you know, but we figured, you know, she’d like see us at least but she didn’t even look over, she didn’t even, like, blink, she just walked on by, you know, so like, like this was a little discouraging, you know, but we’d seen some tough cases before so we weren’t like….we weren’t too upset right away, you know, but we didn’t know, we didn´t know how tough she was until Clarence came riding by in short pants, on his bicycle playing a saxophone with no hands….and she didn’t even, she didn’t even blink, didn’t even say like ‘What was that ?’, you know, nothing, so we knew she was pretty tough, you know, by now, by now we had like….we had a mess of people out on the frontporch at 5 o’clock every day, you know, like, like, I had my father out there, my father used to, see if I stayed home from school, he used to tell my mother that he would have to stay home from work to make sure that I stayed in the house, didn’t go running out, so he’d be out there, I tried to get him to go over and find out what her address was but he was afraid too ‘cause….’cause my mother was always peeking out the windows to see what we were doing out, so we had like about ten guys out there and by now, at 5 o’clock every day, there was a scene going on, right, by now, she´d come walking by and like across the street, there’d be like ‘Hey ! woah ! here she comes !’, all this noise and guitars and maracas and saxophone, all this noise to try and, trying, trying to catch her attention, right, so by now we figured that she must’ve known we was there, you know, but like by now she was so scared, she was like afraid to look over, afraid of what she might see, you know, you know how it is when you´re like afraid of what you might see (chuckles), you know what that´s like ? (chuckles) so anyway this went on….you know, she was afraid of what she might see….we wasn’t seeing anything, just standing there, so like ….this all cleared up when I moved away to the Shore, you know, so I never had to see her no more, you know, but I never like, I never, I never found out what her name was or anything, you know, but that’s good, I, I still think about her sometimes, you know, and it’s like, like we had this name, we had this name at the time that we used to….we used to call her, remember that name, Steve ? (?)…. (….) Big Man….I was checking out….I was checking out the Classifieds today and I saw this thing….I saw this thing that said….said in big, big letters, it said ‘Detective’ ….said ‘I will find anybody’….so like I gave this guy a call, you know….and he’s one of these guys, like, he looks up your family tree, you know, finds out like if you’re a descendant like of some royalty or something, you know….and like I’m gonna hire this guy to find this girl for me, you know, and Steve, man, Steve, I’m telling you…..I´m telling you, you should like, you should hire this guy (Steve : ‘What am I gonna do with him ?’) you may be like, you may be, you can’t tell, you may be, you may be Duke Miami Steve….you know….I’m telling you….you’re a duke, you get a 5-dollar raise….you guys ought to check it out, you guys may be, somebody may be, somebody may be…..Prince Phantom over there (chuckles) you´re a prince, the dukes get, the princes get a 10-dollar raise….and any kings (Clarence : ‘I’m a king’)….any kings get whatever they want (chuckles) yeah, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna find her, find that little girl somehow, some way, someday, somewhere….I will….yes, I will….and when I do….and when I do….and when I do….I’ll probably just let her walk on by again (chuckles)….Pretty Flamingo !….”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, intro to ‘Pretty Flamingo’**

‘‘Anybody, has anybody got…the, the Wild and the Innocent album here ? any of you folks have it ? do you ? (cheers)….I only ask sometimes ‘cause like….some people think that like the last album out was the first one we put out…you know…. (?)…this is from the Wild and the Innocent…. ”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, intro to ‘Incident on 57th Street’**

‘‘(?) Here’s some songs, next couple songs from, uh….are the songs I auditioned with, right, when I, when I got my big break….I went into like, let me tell you, you go to, you go to New York to get your big break, see, you gotta go like….gotta have like a manager, you gotta have an attorney, you gotta have all this stuff like just, just to get into New York these days, you gotta have a manager, they don’t let you through the tunnel without an attorney (chuckles) so it’s like, so like I had no attorney, I had a manager, I went up to the big CBS building, got into an elevator and the CBS building, man, it’s like, it’s in the middle of New York and it’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s ten times as tall as all the other buildings and at the bottom, there’s people, (?) in the streets and they’re going like this and they’re waving like crazy beneath it and you go in and you get into an elevator and like there’s this floor (?) 73 floors and up on top of that they have ‘X’ and when you go in to get your big break, you push the button and they take you up to ‘X’ and once you pass ‘73’, you’re heading on your way up to ‘X’ and the clouds are going by and it’s got misty and it’s hard to breathe and they pass out oxygen masks and you walk out and the door opens up and you walk out and the air’s real thin and I remember, at the time, because at the time Clive Davis was president, he was sitting there with a big white robe on and a little wreath around his head, right, and there was all these little, all these little angels fluttering all around and I remember I got down on my knees and I played my guitar…. ”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, intro to ‘Growin’Up’**

‘‘A nice round of applause please….for Professor Roy Bittan on the piano….play it, Roy….oh yeah….on the guitar, from Asbury Park, New Jersey, M-M-M-Miami Steve…..so cool….on the bass, the bass ace, Garry W.Tallent…..alright….on the drums….the Migh-Ty Max….on the organ, Phantom Dan the Mystery Man….and the whole backstage crew who’d come out and take a bow except they’re too ugly ! ….and last but not least, the king of the world….the master of the motherfucking universe, on the saxophone, Clarence Clemons….”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, middle of ‘Rosalita’**

‘‘I’m honoured enough to have in the audience tonight a man that, that I have admired and, and listened to his music for many, many years….and a man who, without his music, I wouldn’t be here because he’s the guy that turned me on to the whole Stax sound and the R&B sound and we’re lucky enough, he´s gonna come out and do, uh, he´s written so many great songs I can’t even imagine, he’s gonna come out and do a few numbers with us….please give a warm round of applause for Mr.Eddie Floyd….”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, intro to ‘Raise Your Hand’**

(Eddie Floyd leaves the stage) ‘‘That’s the man that wrote the book….that’s the man that wrote the book so clap your hands…..Mr.Eddie Floyd, the great Eddie Floyd…. that’s the man that wrote the book….oh yeah….goddamn, that’s the man that wrote the book there….”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, after ‘Knock on Wood’**

‘‘Take it easy….take it easy…take it easy…alright now, this, this is the part we’ve been saving up for and like….this, this is the most serious part of the whole night…. Big Man….this is so serious, we need about five seconds of ‘cause this is such a dangerous manouver….”
 * 29.04.76 Memphis, TN, middle of ‘Detroit Medley’**

//Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi//